


Pause

by Setkia



Series: My Marvel Stories [6]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Peter Needs a Hug, Wade is a good boyfriend, implied suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setkia/pseuds/Setkia
Summary: “Pause. I call pause on the universe.”Peter snorts. “You can’t—”“Baby, if I can regrow my own brain, I sure as fuck can tell the universe to freeze.”No one’s ever taught Wade how to be comforting. He’s never needed to be.





	Pause

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own this stuff. God, my Spideypool story ideas never seem to end .... I hope I write them well when in established relationship, cause I normally don't do this sort of thing, but I felt it was only fair to do something about Peter. I'm pretty meh about the ending, but this is what's happened. Might change it.

The moment Wade opens his boyfriend’s apartment door, he smells blood and the world stops.

There, sitting on the floor, is Peter Parker, legs tucked into his chest, wearing a too-big Spider-Man sweatshirt (Wade bought it for kicks), shaking, his glasses broken in his hand. 

The brunet hears him. He looks up, his eyes unfocused and glassy as he tries to put together what he’s seeing, and it’s tragic the instant he does.

He scrambles to his feet, forces himself upright and tries to shove his glasses back onto his face. They’re askew, one of the lens’ are missing, and the other is cracked. His hair is a mess and he has bags under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept in years. 

“Tonight’s date night, isn’t it?” he says with a light laugh.

It breaks Wade.

He drops the Ryan Reynolds movies on the floor and the cheap takeout. He crosses the distance between them in a few strides, dropping to his knees in front of the superhero.

“Wade?” says Peter and the mutant takes the glasses away from him. His eyes are so big, so brown, so wide, so innocent. They’re the eyes of someone who’s been forced to grow up quickly, the eyes of someone whose childhood should have lasted longer than it did.

“Hey, I can’t see, Wade.” The chuckle is weak.

Wade doesn’t know what to say.

He’s never comforted people before, he’s always the one who needs comforting. It’s always _him_ who fucks up, who screws up what he and Peter have.

No, he doesn’t fuck it up.

Because looking at Peter now, with his wide eyes, so vulnerable, so weak, and yet so strong, Wade knows this isn’t a fuck up. This isn’t something that could be avoided, it’s not that Peter wasn’t strong enough, it’s not his fault. And if Wade looks anything like this when he has his break downs, he can believe Peter when he tells him it’s not his fault.

No one’s ever taught him how to comfort others. He’s never had to before.

Ordinarily, Peter will ask him to bitch. To complain about whatever his problem is, and then Peter will try and top it with his terrible day (Wade always wins).

Bitching doesn’t seem like the right course of action.

Wade doesn’t want to distract Peter, he doesn’t want to marginalize his problems, make him feel like his concerns aren’t valid or important, because Wade cares. And he knows the right solution isn’t unaliving the bastard who did this, but fuck, is it tempting. 

He reaches forward and takes Peter’s arms in his, runs his hands down the fabric of the ironic sweatshirt. He can see Peter’s hand tight around something and he can’t quite tell what it is until it hits him.

Pills.

The panic is rising, the voices are getting louder, but Wade tries to push them aside because right now, Peter needs him, and he can’t fall apart right now. He _can’t_. This isn’t about him, this is about his boyfriend, his beautiful, strong, brave boyfriend who may have been about to overdose.

“Wade?”

He needs to say something, because hearing Peter speak like that hurts. A lot. His name sounds like poison from his lips, like he’s choking on each syllable, and besides the pain it causes Wade, it’s obvious that it’s like he’s chewing on needles.

“Stop.”

Peter looks at him, his eyes unfocused.

“What—”

“No, be quiet,” says Wade. “Just … pause.”

“I don’t—”

“PAUSE!”

Shit. He didn’t mean to yell.

“No, wait. That’s not what I meant, I just …”

Peter is looking at him silently, patiently. His boy is so patient, so good to him. Wade deserves to pay him back, not because he thinks he owes him, but because he deserves it.

He deserves someone to make him feel better, and Wade’s an idiot for thinking he’s the only one who’s been suffering. 

“Pause. I call pause on the universe.”

Peter snorts. “You can’t—”

“Baby, if I can regrow my own brain, I sure as fuck can tell the universe to freeze.” Wade pulls Peter from the wall, and pulls the hood over his head. “It doesn’t have to stop everywhere, but right here, right now? It’s stopped. A building exploded? Not my problem. Some guy just got mugged? Happens all the time, it’s NYC, let some other douche deal with it. It doesn’t concern us right now.

“Right here, this shitty apartment is our bubble. Society can’t reach us in here. Time stops. Stop thinking, I can hear your genius brain going. I don’t want you to think about _anything_ right now, understand me, Peter?

“You can’t deal with whatever’s bugging you? That’s okay. You don’t have to deal with it right now. You’re a university student, you have classes, and you’re low on sleep because you’re always on watch duty. Stark must be running you dry, and you must get nightmares. 

“You deserve a fucking break, and I don’t care if Nick Fury comes crashing through that door, you’re getting that respite, even if Eye-Patch needs to kill me to give it to you.

“It’s not going to stop what’s happening around us, I know that. I’m not stupid. But for now, it’s not your problem, because you have your own shit to figure out before you figure out other people’s. And it doesn’t matter if you can’t get your shit together just yet, but until you’re ready to press play, I’ll pause everything for you.

"You choose when you’re ready to go back to reality. Until then, we’re in a time lock. Nothing can reach you here.”

Peter’s crying. Wade wants to fuss, but he knows better. To brush away Peter’s tears right now would be as if he’s treating him like a baby, which he’s not, and Wade knows and respects that. Now is not the time to steal the romantic cliché of wiping away a loved one’s tears.

“Breathe, okay?” Wade says, because he can see that Peter’s opening and closing his mouth and he’s trying to force out words, but he can’t quite make them work and Wade knows when he hits a wall, it’s better to back down than to force it. It’ll come out as garbage if he doesn’t, and it happens all the time to Wade. 

“Breathe for yourself. Breathe because you want to, not because you need to. Breathe for yourself, and not anyone else. Or don’t breathe, if you don’t want to. Don’t do it because I tell you to,” Wade says, because he doesn’t know what to tell other people, how to comfort others, but he knows all the things he doesn’t want to hear, and he won’t say a single word of those to Peter.

“Wade—”

“Sorry,” Wade says, backing away. “You need space—”

Peter grabs a fistful of Wade’s tatty worn shirt. “Don’t you dare fucking move.” 

Wade breathes and his body feels lighter. “Aye aye, Captain.”

“Don’t call me Captain.”

“Got it, Colonel.”

“Just …” Peter lets out a breathy laugh that sounds less forced. “Just give me a minute, okay?”

“The world’s paused, remember, Petey? You got all the time in the world.”

Wade waits and he can admit he’s not patient. He doesn’t like waiting, he doesn’t like having to be still, or the silence. It lets the voices get louder, and he can’t even distract himself, but he forces himself to be still and tries not to fidget because Peter doesn’t need this, he doesn’t need Wade making this about him.

Wade is starting to feel uncomfortable in the position he’s stopped in, but he waits until Peter taps on his wrist. It’s morse code.

 _play_. 

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Wade sits down properly on the floor, crossing his legs. He waits again, in silence. He hates it, but he knows Peter needs to be the one to break it.

The brunet takes a deep breath.

“I wasn’t going to do it.” He closes his eyes, and Wade wants to tell him to open them, just so he can stare at those beautiful brown orbs, but he doesn’t. He sits on his hands to make sure he doesn’t get too grabby either. “I … I just … the nightmares are … nightmares are so _real_ , and I have trouble sleeping, so I thought about taking some sleeping pills, my doctor even prescribed them. But I … I wasn’t going to use them for … for _that_. 

“I … I know what loss feels like. I can’t … I couldn’t put my aunt through that. I couldn’t do that to you, or to Tony, or any of the Avengers. They’re depending on me. And I mean, I didn’t not do it just because it would hurt you.

“I didn’t do it because I love the sky. And I love sunsets. And I love sunrise and I love the view of New York from the top of buildings, and I love hanging upside down. I love waiting in long lines for Starbucks, and I like taking photographs of people in the park. I love the stars, and swimming in the summer, and the sound of rain on the windowpane and I love the feeling of wool against my skin and watching Harrison Ford movies.

“I hate the nightmares, and I can’t stand the thought of all the people I _couldn’t_ save, and I feel so _heavy_ most days, and I have so many things I do hate, because I _hate my life_ sometimes, but I have so many _more_ things to live for.

“Like tonight.” Peter smiles. “Date night.”

Wade licks his lips. “I’m a pretty shitty reason to keep living.”

“I think you’re a _brilliant_ reason to keep living," says Peter, cocking his head to the side. "Are you going to fight my judgement? Do you not respect my opinion?"

“I don’t know how to comfort people—”

“You did a pretty good job,” the brunet says, pulling him closer. “I feel all better.” He eyes the discarded movies and food. “Now how about we see if the rice’s container hasn’t broken, and we can sit down and watch some Ryan Reynolds? What about the one with the green superhero—”

“Ugh, that one? One of the biggest mistakes of his career, I’d say,” Wade rolls his eyes. “CGI mask! Hah! What were they thinking?”

“Didn’t he get married to his co-star?”

“Yeah, she was hot. Only good thing that came out of that movie.” 

“Hotter than me?”

Wade rolls his eyes. “As if. Now, if the fanfic writer would hurry the fuck up and let me kiss my boyfriend, that’d be very nice.”

Peter kisses him, and Wade can taste the dried tears on his lips, but tears have never tasted so sweet.


End file.
